


Green

by jimmymcgools



Series: Missing Scenes [1]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mailroom-Era, One Shot, POV Kim Wexler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27133504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimmymcgools/pseuds/jimmymcgools
Summary: A Kim-POV one shot.Kim’s perspective and a missing scene from the second chapter of my ficA Controlled Burn, but it should work on its own.
Relationships: Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman/Kim Wexler
Series: Missing Scenes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020253
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	Green

The thing about him, she thinks, is that he’s new. 

(The thing about him is that he’s new, and he doesn’t look like anyone who’s set foot in this office in the last twenty years, and he doesn’t act like them, either.)

She glances up. He’s across the mailroom, hunting for the power switch behind a copier. He closes his eyes and wets his lower lip, wedging his bare arm further into the gap. A worried assistant frowns at him. Soon, the copy machine stops venting blue-streaked paper and falls silent. 

He stands upright and catches her looking. He shoots her a thumbs up.

She turns back to her own copier. She takes the original from the feeder and sets it on the workstation. Above it, perpendicular, she lays the copies. She marks off the latest item in her list with a red tick then collects the next original. 

The metal teeth of the stapler-remover grip the folded arms of the staple, and she forces them open then pulls the staple free. She slides the document into the feeder and sets the order. Double-sided (booklet). Black and white. Twelve copies. 

An error pops up. She gets a new ream of paper from the box nearby, then peels off the branded wrapper and settles the loose brick of white pages into the copier tray. The empty wrapper (green and blue and glossy) makes a nice crunching sound as she balls it up and drops it into a nearby garbage can. The machine, happy, begins to color the white sheets again. 

The commotion across the mailroom grows louder. He’s poking at buttons now, almost as hopeless as the assistant beside him. 

Fine. 

She leaves her copier and walks over to the other two. The status light on the machine between them is blinking orange. 

He nods at her. The assistant doesn’t react. It takes a moment to place the name: Clara. 

Kim holds a button down on the copier and power cycles it, but there’s no change. Okay then. “I can try some things,” she says, “but this might need a technician.” A glance at the nervous assistant. “If you’re in a rush, I’d use one of the other machines.” 

Clara shakes her head. No, she can’t use another one, her boss _needs_ it to be this one, and now she’s going to get in trouble for breaking the copier, for ruining the only good copy… 

Kim closes her eyes briefly, seeing the face of Clara’s boss on her eyelids. A fifth-year associate who’s offered one too many patronizing smiles and terms-of-endearment over the last few years. Who will definitely take this microscopic tragedy out on somebody. Fine. 

(The thought, as always, is a deliberate formation of the word at the forefront of her mind: Fine.)

He’s watching her again. He, that is, Jimmy. “No,” he says, taking a step closer. His eyes are narrow and shrewd. His words are shrewder: “I know what to do.”

“You know how to fix it?” This, hope-filled, from Clara. 

He shakes his shaggy hair back from his face. “Well, no.” His lips lift, almost tentative, in a smile. “Let’s grab up all those papers—the streaked ones, you got it,” he says, turning back to Clara. “Stack them like you would normally.” 

He bends down and helps to retrieve the blue-marked sheets. The two of them assemble a stack of papers together. His hands are nimble and decisive. 

“Perfect!” he says, when they’ve finished. His smile isn’t tentative, anymore; it’s dazzling, mischievous. His shoulders draw squarer as he breathes in, and his eyes (blue and sharp and playful) crinkle at the corners.

When he lets out his breath, the lightness that he inhaled seems to stay within him. 

He speaks over the soundtrack of a Rat Pack movie: “Now, here’s how we’re gonna play it. I’ll go up first and get a coffee in one of those huge novelty mugs you guys have so many of around here. Clara, you wait a few minutes, then follow me with the papers. Hug ‘em to your chest. I’ll be ready when you get there. Just give me a sign it’s you as soon as you leave the elevator, okay? Uh, a cough.” He demonstrates, coughing into his fist. He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

Clara nods. At his indication, she gives a clear cough of her own. 

“Perfect! When I hear that, I’ll come racing down towards you, we’ll have a little rom-com meet cute, a little collision, I’ll spill my coffee all over those papers. Maybe even knock us both over—stunt falls are a cakewalk, just keep loose, all right?” He shakes his arms out, a gymnast limbering up. “And I can cushion most of the hit, you game for that?” 

Clara smiles. “I wanted to be an actress when I was little, actually,” she says, “like Doris Day.”

“The queen of pratfalls, you’re gonna _shine_.” He spreads his hands out, his watch hanging loose on his wrist. “All right!” A sharp clap. “Time’s wasting, let’s go!” He nods to Clara once more and then bounds over to the elevators. As the doors close on him, he’s still grinning.

Huh. 

“So that’s Mr. McGill’s brother, is it?” Clara says. “Wow.” She turns towards Kim’s silence. “What’s he like?” 

(The thing about him, she thinks, is that in thirty seconds he’s just decided the best way to deal with a broken copier and a nervous assistant is to go upstairs and throw coffee all over the problem and his reputation at once.)

Clara is waiting. 

Kim shrugs. She sticks with the facts. “He’s new.” 

* * *

Her copier has run out of paper again. She tears open another ream. She settles the brick of perfect sheets into the tray. She thinks of flicking the protective nib off a new ballpoint pen. She thinks of running her nail along the seal of a fresh packet of cigarettes. 

(The thing about him, she thinks, is that he’s been gone for twenty minutes now.)

She takes up the last original from the pile. She reaches for the stapler-remover. 

The elevator doors open. He stands in the orange-lit interior. Coffee drips from the front of his shirt down over his slacks, a huge stain. 

She feels the smile on her face. She doesn’t know how long it’s been there. 

She lets it linger.

It’s obvious from his face that he notices her expression, but he wanders over almost casually. He peels his damp shirt away from his chest and peers at it. When he releases the fabric, it suctions back to his skin. 

She lowers the document she’s been holding back to the worktable. “Some coffee break then, huh?” 

He smiles down at himself. “I feel like Carrie on prom night.”

She chuckles. Carrie on prom night, but none of the embarrassment. He looks back up from himself to her, and his eyes glint. It must’ve gone well enough, then, she thinks, raising her eyebrows. 

“Oh, Clara nailed it up there,” he says, nodding. “A pro, totally. Hollywood’s gonna be calling any day now.” He smiles, his eyes still on her own. 

(The thing about him, she thinks, is that he keeps studying her, like her presence here makes as little sense to him as his does to her.)

“‘Course I think the fall’s what really did it,” he says, heading into the breakroom and speaking over his shoulder, as if she’s just going to follow him. “Hey, like Butch and Sundance, y’know?” 

She does follow him. 

The scent of coffee is heavy as she steps into the smaller space. He pulls at his damp shirt again, then starts tugging it free from his slacks. He glances over to her and smiles (sunny and straightforward) as he untucks it. “You know, I _just_ bought this shirt,” he says, unbuttoning it down the front now, and then sliding it off. 

His white undershirt is soaked, too. 

He turns and wrings his button-up out over the sink. The dark coffee echoes as it splashes on the metal. He twists the fabric around the other way. More echoing drips. 

When there’s a gap in the drumming, she says, “Where’d you buy a short-sleeved button-up in 1992, anyway?” 

He glances sideways at her. “Okay, you got me, it’s not exactly new,” he says, shaking the last liquid from the twisted fabric. “I’m thrifty.” He gives it one final squeeze, forearms tense, then he unfurls it and slips his arms back through the sleeves. The coffee stain has spread over more of the shirt, now, though at least it’s not actively dripping anymore. He buttons it with quick fingers and tucks it in. 

When she looks back up to his face, he’s staring at her. 

He smiles. “These cheap blends are real sturdy, though, huh?” he says. “This’ll just wash right out tonight—and until then at least it smells great.”

She gives a soft laugh. Sure.

“I’m serious!” he says, eyes wide. He shakes his hair out of his face. “Hey, you want a coffee? I’m having one—you know what they say about getting right back on the horse.” 

She gives it a moment, then says, “Something about how you can’t make it drink, right?”

He points at her. “Spot on.” He fusses with the filter and grounds then thumbs the button. The machine makes a whining noise. It’s out of water. He doesn’t seem to realise. He opens the top and frowns at the grounds. Pokes at them with a coffee-stained finger. 

“Here,” she says, brushing past him and lifting the water reservoir from the back. She fills it at the faucet, then slides it back into place. She presses the button, and the machine, happy, begins to drip coffee. “Just don’t let it sense fear next time, okay?”

“I’ll never remember how you did that,” he says. He drifts his hand over the side of his head. “Whoosh. It’s already gone.”

(The thing about him, she thinks, is that it seems like he’s actually always listening, always observing.) 

He smiles. “But you’ll be here tomorrow morning to help, right?”

She thinks about that new packet of cigarettes again. “Of course.” 

“Great!” he says. Another smile, then he scratches his bare elbow. There’s a brown coffee stain on it. 

The machine finishes dripping. He takes a couple of clean cups from the dish-rack, fills one with fresh coffee, and offers it to her.

She shakes her head. 

His voice is soft. “Go on, you seem beat.”

She closes her eyes briefly. Fine.

“Great!” he says again, waiting for her to take it. He pours a cup for himself then glances down at his stained shirt and slacks. “Quite a look, huh?” A grin to her. “I’ll just get you to walk in front of me for the rest of the day, okay?” he adds, as he wanders out of the breakroom. He calls to her from outside, “Like _Bringing Up Baby_ , you know!” A beat. “That a deal?” 

She takes a sip of coffee. It’s terrible. He didn’t use enough grounds. She has another sip anyway.

She doesn’t say anything. 

(But she forms the word deliberately at the forefront of her mind: Deal.)

And she follows him. Her copier needs another ream of paper already. She reaches for one. She tears open the crisp wrapper. The clean sheets settle comfortably into the tray. 

The thing about him, she thinks, is that he’s new; and she likes new things. 


End file.
